


a very good person who bad things have happened to

by butiamhome



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butiamhome/pseuds/butiamhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revised and updated 11/5/2015.</p>
<p><i>"He was sick of it; sick of being the person who is stared at and talked about all the time. If any of them knew, if any of them had the faintest idea what it felt like to be the one all these things had happened to..." </i><br/>Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix<br/></p>
<p>
It's canon that Dawn is into Harry Potter, at least enough to make a reference in one episode. I firmly believe she's read the whole series and watched the films. I wrote this fic to try and work out how she'd feel about some of what happens. Obvious spoilers for both the Harry Potter series and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Title quote from Sirius Black in the fifth movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a very good person who bad things have happened to

When her sister comes back after running away for the summer, things are tense. To try and make up for all the fights and silence (and to give Dawn something to do), her mom buys her a book she’s just heard of— _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_. Dawn can’t put it down. She takes it to school and reads it at lunchtime, talks about it with the friends whose parents haven’t forbidden them from reading such a “dangerous” book.  _After all_ , her friends say, _it’s not like magic is real._ Dawn feels lucky that her mom is cool enough to let her read them—and then she gets all hyped up about M.O.O. and burns them.

When she gets her hands on the second book, she spends a lot of time laughing at Gilderoy Lockhart. If anyone should be writing books on conquering magical creatures, it’s, like, the Scoobies, or maybe just Giles. She flushes with shame at Polyjuice Potion after a few thousand rereads, after what Faith did. She always thought she could be trusted to notice when her friends or family weren’t themselves. She thought wrong. She doesn’t blame Malfoy much anymore for not recognizing his greatest enemies disguised as his best friends.

Dawn loves Remus Lupin the minute he shows up in the third book. There’s a familiarity there, a professor-type with patched-elbow jackets and a wealth of knowledge. Maybe Giles isn’t really _her_ Lupin, but he’s basically Buffy’s, which is sort of the next best thing. And if she can’t match Harry in magic (Buffy won’t let Willow teach her _anything_ ), she can at least relate to his rebellious streak. Sometimes when Xander falls asleep on the couch while babysitting, Dawn wanders around the house looking for secret compartments and passages she knows are probably not there. Eventually she settles for a quick, quiet exit through the window—she never wanders far, but it’s enough just to get out of her head sometimes. She doesn’t have a godfather—she barely has a father, period—but she thinks Sirius might be proud of her.

_Goblet of Fire_ is the first non-dusty, non-dead-language book of its size she reads in a long time. She’s not sure if she trusts Cedric—the last kind, strong-looking boy she knew broke her sister’s heart—but then he helps Harry out and she thinks, maybe this guy’s okay. The second Triwizard challenge gets to her; she’s always seen some Xander and Willow in Ron and Hermione, and she knows Buffy would risk losing a challenge like that to save them both. But there’s a tiny, jealous part of her that hopes that Buffy would be more like Fleur, that the most precious treasure taken from her would be her little sister. She’d never ask her, though. Not like Buffy would understand, anyway.

A month after Sunnydale is destroyed—after _they_ destroy Sunnydale—Dawn and the Scoobies are living somewhere in California while they figure out where to go from here. Almost everything they own was lost in the crater, but Dawn somehow ends up with a full set of Harry Potter books—stolen for her, she suspects, by Spike. It includes a copy of _Order of the Phoenix,_ the newest book. She thinks she understands Harry’s outbursts a little too well. When Sirius falls through the veil, she throws the book at the wall and leaves the room. She drafts an angry letter to JKR— _you don’t give someone family just so they can watch them die._ She never sends it. She gets through the rest of the book by keeping Buffy in eyesight and hoping with Harry that Sirius comes back, and comes back _right._ He doesn’t come back at all, and she cries for the both of them.

The most infuriating thing about the sixth bookis definitely Snape. Dawn can never figure out which side he’s supposed to be on. She figures he’s written like that for a reason, but it’s still annoying. She’s watched her own favorite villain swap sides from time to time, but she knows him (for the most part) and knows where his real loyalties lie now—Buffy, of course. Always Buffy. No matter how badly Spike screws up—and god, she thinks, and how—he will always come back to her, genuinely apologetic. She’s not sure Snape has felt regret or guilt in his entire life. And when Dumbledore falls from the tower—Dawn closes the book, puts her face in her hands, and cries. Rowling always knows exactly where to wound her.

By the time _Deathly Hallows_ comes out, Dawn has carried her battered copies of the first six everywhere, read them in multiple languages, and cried all over the world. Dawn is tired. She feels old suddenly, she feels ready for a resolution. But she knows now that there are no real finales, and when things do end, they rarely end happily or wholly. As Harry whispers to the Snitch, she puts the book down, calls her sister, not caring what time zone either of them are in. _I understand now,_ she says, _Thank you._ Buffy sounds groggy and confused, but offers up a sleepy, _Okay, weirdo._ She hangs up, keeps reading. There are a lot of tears. There’s a lot of anger at each unnecessary death, but she knows now how these things work.

Dawn thinks the epilogue is garbage. Heroes don’t get a perfect ending, a quiet rest-of-their-lives. All can be well for now; it’s never well forever. But she tries to accept it, to let the ending be happy just this once. At least one of her heroes deserves some rest.

**Author's Note:**

> It took me two years to write this fic originally, and another year or so to get around to revising it. I hope you like it.


End file.
